Dichotic listening in monozygotic twins discordant and concordant for schizophrenia

Emotional and neutral word versions of the fused rhymed words dichotic listening test were administered to members of 18 pairs of monozygotic twins discordant for schizophrenia, 7 pairs concordant for schizophrenia, and 7 pairs of normal twins. In the discordant group, affected twins had smaller right ear advantages than did their unaffected cotwins for neutral words. The difference was completely attenuated with the presentation of emotional words or in less powerful between-group comparisons that included twins concordant for schizophrenia and normal twins. It is unlikely that this finding reflects an abnormality in the lateralized representation of language, both because we did not find a correlation between handedness scores and dichotic listening scores and because emotional stimuli normalized results. The finding may reflect abnormalities in the allocation of attention for priming language centers in the left hemisphere. 'At risk' subjects, i.e., the unaffected members of the discordant pairs, did not differ significantly from normal monozygotic twins on measures of dichotic listening.